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Malcolm Merlyn woke with a start from vague dreams of Damien Darhk and a scheming speedster. Disconcerted by context he could feel just out of reach, the former Ra’s al Ghul decided to take the night air. Keeping to the shadows, Merlyn could’ve sworn he was still dreaming. He saw a flying girl land gracefully in front of some dumpsters. That was unusual, even in this age of meta-humans.

He continued to watch, as the girl rummaged through a dumpster, gently removing something wrapped in newspaper. She cooed over it, and he moved stealthily closer to hear what she said. “You’re the third abandoned little one I’ve found with my super hearing in as many months on two different Earths.” She sighed. “I’d better take you to Oliver. It’s my first time in Star City, and I don’t know where you belong.”

The girl must have heard Merlyn’s shocked intake of breath with her super hearing, because she called out. “Who’s there?”
Understanding that the situation was too unusual for inscrutability, Merlyn let himself be seen and received another shock when the girl addressed him. “Malcolm Merlyn?”

“You know me?,” he asked, taken aback.

“Yes,” she replied, “and I’ll explain, but first I need to get this baby somewhere safe.”

That was no problem. Merlyn knew the address of Star City’s Child Protective Services by heart. He had kept track of the agency, even during the various upheavals, because Rebecca would have seen it as his civic duty as a parent. He gave the girl the information and waited while she flew away on her errand.

She returned, and they walked back to his apartment to have a conversation that would stay with him for the rest of his life. That conversation began with the most unexpected question: “Do you like to sing, Mr Merlyn?”

“I…I’ve never actually thought about it,” he realized. “Why?”

Kara Zor-El (that was her name) proceeded to relate a story so fantastic that it could only be true. She spoke of the Multiverse, beings from the Fifth Dimension, and being trapped with Barry Allen within a musical inside their own minds. “And I was a knife happy mob boss with a son named Tommy?” Merlyn had been standing when they began. He sat, stunned.

“I’m sorry,” replied Kara. “I’ve lived the pain I see in your eyes and seen it in the eyes of my friends. Tommy must be dead.”

“We have to build the memorials,” said Kara soberly. “We’re the only ones left who can.”

Merlyn could not fathom the depth of the pain in her voice. After considering carefully, he decided he wanted the answer to his next question. “How many people did you and your friends lose, Kara?”

Her answer shook him existentially. She spoke of dead worlds and dead species. She spoke of implosion and immolation. “Is it true your League of Assassins had magic water that could prolong life for up to two centuries?,” asked Kara.

“Yes,” answered Merlyn, realizing the tragic irony. Even if Nyssa hadn’t neutralized the Lazarus Pit, the water likely wouldn’t have had any effect on these extra terrestrial remnants who needed their lives prolonged the most.

Kara half-smiled. “I tried to tell J'onn what Oliver told me about the water and he could only laugh. J’onn has been exiled on our Earth for over 300 years. Martians are very long-lived when their left to live.”

Merlyn choked on even more tragic irony than he anticipated. Kara continued. “It was good to hear him laugh. He needs to more often.”

The dam inside Merlyn broke then. The husband, the father, the CEO, the Demon’s Head understood his own culpability upon his own Earth He poured out mass murder and alienation. He poured out parental neglect. He poured out his son’s blood and his daughter’s soul. Merlyn could see that Kara struggled with these revelations.

“Oliver tried to tell me some of this,” said Kara. “I didn’t quite believe him until I saw his eyes. You caused all of this, because you couldn’t properly grieve one death. One death.”

Kara wasn’t screaming, but her tone seared him, as she continued. She told him about her Aunt Astra and her Uncle Non. She spoke of how they had tried to answer a planet’s death by altering a planet’s life. The Last Daughter of Krypton spoke of her family’s Undertaking. “A life, a city, a world. Losses have to be grieved or your just making a larger void for more people to scream into.”

They were both crying now. “This explains why Thea almost didn’t leave the Dominators’ trap,” Kara mused through her tears. She explained about the invasion to a gaping Merlyn. “I’ll give her extra hugs,” promised Kara.